No More Stand-By Line for Toy Story Mania

RideMan said:

On a related note, one of the leading theories on this TSM experiment is that they are planning to add a second ride and want to do the Six Flags thing and make one ride FastPass only, the other for everyone else. It seems to me it would make more sense to set it up so that both queues could be diverted to both rides, to balance capacity.

I seem to remember a time visiting Magic Kingdom (and I have no idea if it was temporary or if it still works this way) where they did that very thing with Space Mountain.

Fastpasses went to the right and standby went to the left.

Trying to pin down the date and between my wife & myself we put it in 2000/2001.

The whole thing with that though, is that I don't see how it makes things better...unless you do as Dave said and create the queue so that lines can be diverted either way. In which case, you're simply adding capacity and the whole 100% reservation experiment makes no sense.

Like I said, I just don't see the benefit in taking four days and trying a 100% reservation thing unless you plan on doing something with it.

I have to wonder how much of the customer push for reservations comes from FOMO, where people grab reservations because they believe they have to, then end up not needing it. I've seen that with FastLane passes, too...where people buy FastLane passes on-line because they are afraid the passes will sell out, then they get to the park and find out all the rides are walk-on. So people may not want to schedule every minute of their Disney vacation, but they wish they could schedule more...not because they want to, but because they are afraid they won't be able to do what they want if they don't.

I think this is absolutely the case. People reserve stuff (rides/dinner/shows) months in advance because they feel like they have to.

That's what I was saying with all of the Disney 'suggesting' you do things certain ways when you visit.

Make no mistake, Disney holds the reigns. They've created a situation where people need to (or feel the need to) do whatever they can to feel like they'll be able to do the things they want during their vacation.

Jeff said:

Not only do we know how badly it failed with the CP experiment, but Disney isn't going to neuter the feature they haven't turned on: paid Fastpass.

1. Comparing CP and Disney? You know better.

2. Tek covered it briefly, but there's a myriad of ways to make paid fastpass work.

And what feels more likely?

No one gets Fastpass and you pay to have it.

Or

Everyone gets Fastpass and you pay to get better ones or more of them.

Your ticket guarantees you X rides (reservations/Fastpasses/whatever), plus whatever you can pick up along the way. But, man, if you want to give your family the ultimate Disney experience you can guarantee X+Y rides for a price. Or for a little more upgrade to X+Z rides. Or...fill in the blank with any number of upcharge schemes.

It plays on exactly what Dave is talking about. The need for people to feel like they'll get the most from this (for many once-in-a-lifetime) vacation.

---

As a compete aside, this made me chuckle:

It's not about you.

My position is that they will never go 100% reservations, no matter how right you think you are.

I'm just picking. :)

Also, ETA - don't take my 100% so literally. A pre-reserved vacation doesn't mean you reserve every little thing. If you end up getting passes for a good chunk of your day - even 75% of what you do, that's what I call a fully pre-reserved or preplanned vacation. The point is you'll plan a lot more than you don't.

I don't think there's any interest in doing that, because I get the distinct impression that people aren't even fully embracing what's available today. Knowing a lot of people who worked on NextGen, it just isn't something they're optimizing for.

And yes, they still divert mostly FP to one side of Space Mountain, though they'll supplement that side with standby to keep the sub-queue two or three loads deep. Soarin' often seems to go that way as well. If the Toy Story thing ends up going that way, I imagine they would do the same thing.

But if they already do it on other attractions, why would they have to 'test' it for this one?

They know it works. They do it already. And that sort of applies to all of our individual speculation for possible reasons for doing the test - I mean, they know they can run one side of a ride as Fastpass only - why did they have to run a 4-day test? What's different about this test?

Given the layout of that area of the park, it could be logistically difficult to do a split and merge of that queue, depending on how and where they would put a clone of the ride. I have no idea what's slated for the adjacent building. So sure, they do splits today, but in situations where there's a shared queue. They don't have an atomic unit operating separately that I can think of.

Perhaps you're too convinced that you know the reason for the test.

Perhaps you're too convinced that you know the reason for the test.

Heh. No, that's not it. The reason for the test is quite simply to see if it's possible to run a ride under 100% reservations. It's where they go with that information that's interesting.

And I see what you're saying, but Space Mountain doesn't share a queue, correct? You enter the queue for one ride or the other.

Right now, the current TSMM tracks are to the right of the queues. The area rumored for the new track is to the left. Without a major redesign of the queue area the two load points are going to be completely isolated from one another. You can see a layout of it here. http://www.wdwnewstoday.com/images/TSMlayout.jpg

The easy move you be to change the standby line slightly at Mr. Potato Head and send the standby line into the area on the left. But the FP+ line goes nowhere near that area to provide a merge point. Hence the FP+ only side and standby only side talk and potentially this test.

That diagram helps... I really never thought much about that layout. With the adjacent building of similar size being the speculative place for a duplicate ride, that would make a split sort of difficult. It doesn't help that the configuration of the current ride loads from literally the middle of the building almost.

But still, if the other side was mirrored, use the adjacent space for more standby queue, and to your point, divert the aggregate standby north, as it goes now, to the existing building if FP is light on people. If not, divert them south to the new "standby" ride, metering how many you let in to prevent an issue of one taking longer to board than the other. That's not entirely far from how Soarin' is set up.

Space Mountain is a two parallel queues all the way to the last 100 feet, where you could go to either platform at that point.

Well, the whole mirrored thing is my first thought. Just mirror it and run the queue up the middle with a split controlling traffic. (even turning it 180 degrees leaves an entire middle area for connecting queues)

How is building a whole separate ride with an entirely separate queue and then splitting those queues into "Fastpass or naw" the better solution?

Lord Gonchar said:

And I see what you're saying, but Space Mountain doesn't share a queue, correct? You enter the queue for one ride or the other.

There is a point right in front of the control tower, just after FP merge, where you can mix the left-hand/right-hand sides.

Lord Gonchar said:

How is building a whole separate ride with an entirely separate queue and then splitting those queues into "Fastpass or naw" the better solution?

That may be what part of what this weeks test is trying to answer. Using 2 separate queues could mean less downtime of the current attraction for refurbishment during the transition. Rearranging the Queues so there is a new merge point accessible by both the standby and FP+ lines could require completely demolishing and rebuilding the current queue. At this point, the park is down to 5 rides. If they can bring the added capacity online with minimal downtime could be advantageous.

Seems like that wouldn't be so hard to work around that you give up the convenience and superiority of one queue directing traffic to two rides in exchange for the very temporary benefit of making the upgrade a bit smoother.

In other words, it feels like very short-sighted thinking.

Then again, none of the logic in this thread makes much sense to me.

I'm being told 100% reservations won't work on any remotely large scale, but that on a single ride (or ride half) it works just fine and that the park would rather operate one attraction as two using a 100% reservation system on 1/2 the attraction in the name of making it marginally easier while construction of the new other 1/2 of the ride is happening.

Good thing I don't work for Disney.

No, you're only being told that 100% reservations is unnecessary and unwanted. :)

Like that matters. :)

Seriously though, are you buying the TSMM logic being presented here?

FoL was unnecessary and unwanted at one point too.

FOL was always wanted. If by no one else than me. Not sure its even necessary today though.

If you tell people they can avoid lines all day and guarantee they'll hit all the attractions they want to, they'll be all over it.

You can argue that people don't want to preplan, I guess, but you can't deny the draw of not standing in line, nor the desire to 'do everything' on their vacation.

All you have to do is offer them both of those things.

If we're being practical, you more or less can guarantee that today, save for a few specific attractions, and those have capacity limitations (Toy Story chief among them). You keep beat the drum of skip all the lines with reservations, but the reality is that you don't need them to skip lines. Nowhere is this more true of the four parks than at DHS.

You're still much too pragmatic about the whole thing.

I'm selling people the "Young Parents" package. And the "Thrillseeker" package. And the "Character Bonanza" and the "Time Saver" and the "Food Lover" and the "Around the World"

(I should probably quit taking my inspiration from prostitutes)

It's not about want and need. It's about a Disney experience that's gonna kick your ass and leave you wanting more.

"You don't have to wait in long lines. You'll have plenty of free time to explore the world of Disney. You won't have to wory about saving time and deciding and planning on which amazing Disney rides, attractions and shows you want to visit because we do all the work for you and you'll be able to do it ALL!"

And you get a car! And you get a car! And you get a car! And you get a car!

I don't even know what you're even selling now. It's like I'm sitting down eating dinner and you're offering me dinner. Or maybe Oprah, which is DO NOT WANT.

I think he's offering you prostitutes.